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Wednesday, August 10, 2011

New (Old) Patterns

I mentioned in my previous post that we went flea marketing last weekend and I found a few vintage patterns.

These were found in a little store in Lambertville, NJ, which had a heavy inventory of vintage clothes, jewelry, knicknacks, toys, magazines, and the kind of stuff that can keep you occupied for hours. The patterns (there were probably about 25) were stuffed, standing up, in an old jewelry box. Mario pointed them out to me and disappeared off into some back room to look at comic books.

I settled down in a corner and spread them out. Most were gorgeous - there were a few of those cute romper-with-skirt combos, bathing suits, loads of dresses, a few pairs of pants. I'm a sucker for a vintage dress, though, and that's where I focused my attention.

They had two Hollywood Patterns, the Evelyn Keyes 1041 pictured here, and a Betty Grable which I couldn't afford (the random pricing didn't make much sense except for that one). Despite wanting the Grable because of the photo and the great pattern drawing, I ended up with Evelyn, Scarlett O'Hara's little sister, because it was overall a better pattern.

Here's the description: Fitted jacket-blouse with or without square collar. Shoulder yokes in one with center front and back sections. Bracelet length or shortsleeves. Slim six-gored skirt.

A little girlish in the drawings, perhaps, but I think it has a lot of possibilities - look at those interesting curved shoulder seams. They're hidden under the collar on the center figure, buried in floral print on the left, and ruined with ruffles on the right, but the style line in and of itself is interesting. Best of all, it's a 38" bust, 41" hip. No grading up, hallelujah! (Though can you believe that I'm a size 20 in this vintage pattern?)

The second pattern is McCall 8040, another dress. There's nothing tremendously special about this one (other than the 40" bust measurement; I might have to grade down) but I liked the plaid version with the collar on the bias. And I just plain like the shape of the collar which, by the way, is cut on, not a separate piece. And they give pattern pieces for the shoulder pads.

I love old patterns.

The third and final pattern, Simplicity 2780, is my favorite, because I know I'll get a ton of wear out of it. I may be a sucker for vintage dress patterns, but jacket patterns of any era always pique my interest.

The pattern description: Misses bolero. The bolero is fitted with darts and the lining is optional. Style 1 features a shawl collar cut in one with the front. The lower edge is curved, and the long sleeves are trimmed with cuffs. A Peter Pan collar edges the high neckline in Style 2, and the lining is in contrast. The sleeves in Style 3 are three-quarter length.

I think that's a lot of jacket for one pattern. And for a seemingly simple pattern, ther are - count 'em - 10 darts. Back darts, bust darts, back shoulder darts (I LOVE those) and 2 darts in each sleeve. I can't wait to make this one.

Simplicity called this a bolero, but I always think of boleros as really cropped. According to the measurements on the back of the envelope, the length from back of neck to bottom of jacket for my size is 16 1/4". Longer than what I think of as a bolero, but also way more useful than those cropped jackets that are absolutely adorable but don't work with the clothes I want to wear under them.

Where was this jacket in January? It would have saved me three muslins for the wedding jacket.
These patterns were all in the lower price level ($7 each), which I thought was a little high, but I convinced the seller to let me open the envelopes to confirm that the instructions and all pieces were there, and they were. The envelopes have had a little wear and tear, but the pattern tissue is still intact and the instructions, if a little brown and crispy around the edges, are there as well. Can't wait to dive in and read them; I always learn someting new from vintage instructions.

Not bad for a day otherwise spent enjoyably wandering 2 flea markets, looking over everyone's old goodies, getting a nice sunburn,and then having lunch outdoors under a tree that made the sunburn worthwhile.

I'm not really into vintage patterns but hearing of your adventure makes me want to head up to Lambertville (I'm just outside Princeton). Of course, when I go there I end up at that yarn shop... not good for the wallet!

Karen

About Me

Writer, packrat, cat lady, mad sewer, book hound and anything else you can think of that requires accumulation in numbers.

I can't remember a time when I didn't make things. Now I'm a recovering stasher belatedly discovering my sense of thrift. This is a chronicle of my journey to take my passion for refashioning and recycling and turn it into something more . . . and perhaps set me free from cubicle-land once and for all.